Busy Saturdays

Photo from The Nashville Scene

Busy Saturdays make me long for time to:
Read a book,
Go on a walk,
talk to a friend
and not look at the clock.

To see:
how much is left,
of this day off,
that feels more full than a work day.

Slow Monday is just around the corner,
if I let it stay unstructured,
unscheduled,
and un-tampered with.

Help me keep it slow,
that quiet Monday that I cherish so.

New old furniture

Sits in the corner of my office.
Melon green, sky blue, beigey beige and wicker weave.
The half-circle sits waiting -
for conversation over coffee, tea, cookies and tissue boxes.
for book reading in the afternoon sun.
for people to fill their openness, with themselves.
As they are, however they come and in every color of the rainbow.
Just like my new-old multicolored furniture.

Daddy's hands

Stained glass @ Casa online.

When I was a little girl some of the things I remember most about Sunday mornings in church were: the rich colors of the stained glass groovy (or so I thought) windows, drawing pictures all over every centimeter of the visitor cards with the tiny pencils that were in the pew, and sitting next to my Dad and holding his hand.

I remember looking forward to prayer, because it was when I usually grabbed my Dad's hand tight. It was a moment I felt safe, loved and understood. Dad's hands were work weary. He was a police officer and also moonlighted as a home contractor. Sometimes his hands would have wood stain on them, they were rough and often he would have some cuts here and there from working with wood or a purple thumbnail from missing a nail and hitting it with a hammer. Somehow, I was never put off by the life wear that was so visible in his hands. I can still picture Dad in his three piece gray or brown suit looking so put together, but his hands were always in work clothes.

His hands were rarely resting. He would build, rake, snow blow, work in his wood shop in the basement, split wood, write reports, and record each day in his diary. Holding his hand was a way for me to feel connected to him and all the grown-up work and adventure he got to take part in. It felt to me, like stepping into his shoes for a moment.

Yesterday, I was surprised to get a call from my Dad. He was on a business call near where I live so we made plans to have coffee or dinner together with my Mom, my daughter, her friend and my son. We sat down at the dinner table at Applebee's and chatted about lots of different things. It had been a several months since we had seen each other and had almost all my family and them in one place, so there was a great deal to catch up on. Work, school, the kids activities, an so on. What we talked about mostly was a blur, but it was a happy blur as I cherish the times we see each other face to face.

As our food came to the table, Dad asked if he could say the blessing and he reached out to take my hand across the table. Now that his work is not so physical, his hands are no longer rough like they used to be when I was I child. I laid my hand in his and he spoke words of thankfulness, blessing and I focused on being in that moment. I became aware of him carefully holding my hand, gently squeezing my fingers and seeming to not want to let go. I looked at him at the end of the short prayer that seemed to me to going in slow motion, and he smiled. It was the same smile he's give me when I was a small child sitting next to him in on the padded pew. I smiled back and he squeezed my hand once more before letting go.

There has been a long stretch of time for me since I was reminded or willing to accept that I'm loved, cherished and maybe even more understood by my Dad, than I thought. Even if we don't always agree on things, that moment with my Dad yesterday reminded me of where we started and where I'd like to stay in our relationship. One simple gesture of hand holding, makes me crave more moments like this, to make more memories to embrace, and be reminded of my own desire to reach out and find my Daddy's hand already waiting to hold mine.


Photo from Child's Photography

Reach out, don't let fear or loss keep you from holding hands. Sometimes the simplest action has the greatest healing impact.

Supermodel?

Photo from Kendall Payne's website



I saw Kendall Payne perform at the NYWC in Pittsburgh last fall - lovely and clever music indeed!

Green hope

Hope flickers catching the least bit of light and makes everything sparkle with possibility.

Hope shimmers in corners of books pages being turned in cozy coffee shops and travel in the gurgling sounds of latte's in progress.

Hope shows up in the unexpected wagging of a dog's tail, that thought it had forgotten how to play.

Hope lives in the phone call so needed by the friend you miss. Words of knowing and understanding make it grow.

Hope is what makes an unselfish idea become a dream and eventually, patiently, and deliberately come true. Then inspiration becomes a dream or idea for another mind to ponder.

Hope is never-ending, shy to be seen, but ready to be duplicated.
Humble, real and always waiting for you, just when you think you've reached the end of your rope.

There is hope.

I can't make me love you

I just do.Thanks for loving me.

"Every day there is something more to hold on to."
Butterfly Boucher

SWB: Holding the loaf

My husband, Ian and I were talking last night about "Sleeping with Bread" and the context of holding on to a resource of comfort in the midst of darkness. We talked about how we've grown as people and some of our adventures together since we met in 1988 (really!). Sometimes I look back on all those years in wonder of all the life that we've lived, through both the complex and simple times.

The nostalgic mood we were in had something to do with the annual combined birthday lunch celebration of my Mother-in-law and I. We also watched some home movies at Janet's house on Sunday afternoon (that is what the blogged poem below is about.), and I was amazed at the effect the thirty-year-old home movies had upon my husband's family members.

Seeing the images of family members of the past allowed us to wonder, beginning to grasp the fact that we would not have been sitting here 30 years later on a Sunday afternoon, had it not been for them. How strange it is to consider how long it had been since we had thought to think of them or how they lived. What a treasure it was for the family to feel so grounded and connected as we watched the silent footage.

I felt included in the connection to a point, but it made me wish that I had old home movies of Grandpap, Grandma, and my very large collection of Aunts, Uncles and family that are a part of my side of the family. Sadly though, there isn't a great deal of connection or opportunity for Sunday afternoons like this with my relatives. We live far apart from each other in lots of different ways.

Distraction is the word I suppose that fits the "far apart" that I feel and experience on my side of the family. I won't choose to believe that it is intentional, purposeful or a conscience action. The far apart is just the way it is, and that fact is a desolation for me.

For the most part, I'm more aware of the connections and life that I do experience on Sunday afternoons with my family and rarely think on who I wish would also be there to join us. But moments like this sometimes bring who I miss abruptly and emotionally to the surface.


Image found at Fave Flicker Blog

My Sunday afternoon family gives me life. They are my consolation in so many ways. They are the bread that gives me strength, hope and love in both spoken and unspoken ways. I could choose to chase after shadows of who and what I wish to be a part of the present, but that only would distract me from the reality of the sunshine I'm bathed in every day.

We are not perfect, and sometimes we drive each other crazy, but I love that we love each other through the craziness. When I think about who is in my life, it's a little like watching home movies in the darkness. The darkness is there, but it is nothing compared to the beauty I see flickering before me.

So, I will hold onto my Sunday afternoon bread even when the shadows of "I wish" surface. Wishes can be mirages of hope, while bread is a hope I can really hold on to.



Drawing from APH Art

Bittersweet Cellulloid

Photo from Digital Retouch

Old movies flicker
with faces from the past.
Without these images who would known that their names would last.

Tear filled eyes overwhelmed with the vision
of fuzzy faced memories now in focus of their living.

The lives that they lived and the people they met,
seem to have faded away like yellowed newspapers.
Yet, here they are remembered in a technicolor DVD dream.

Antiques of humanity, driving beautiful old cars
look so enchanting in their everyday wars.

Playing with children and cutting homemade wedding cakes.
Looking at these flashes of their lives makes me wonder what impact ours will make.